Swimming: Off plane, into record book

Christchurch's Olympic-bound swimmer Helen Norfolk flew in from altitude training in the United States to break a New Zealand record on the opening night of the national winter championships in Dunedin last night.

The 18-year-old Norfolk led a powerful charge from the nine-strong Kiwi Olympic team, who showed they were in impressive form three weeks out from the Sydney Games.

Olympic team-mates Jonathan Duncan of Dunedin and North Shore's Dean Kent were also in winning form last night.

Norfolk became the first New Zealander to break the two-minute barrier in winning the 200m freestyle in 1m 58.80s. That took more than a second off the 1996 mark held by Dionne Bainbridge.

The Christchurch swimmer also won the 200m individual medley and finished fourth in the 100m backstroke to complete an exhausting first day.

Norfolk and Duncan flew home on Tuesday from nearly four weeks of altitude training under national coach Brett Naylor at Flagstaff, Arizona, and Los Alamos, New Mexico.

"There's a jet lag factor on any international flight, but added to that after two days out of altitude the body really struggles," Naylor said.

"So for Helen to break a national record and Jonathan to swim close to his Olympic qualifying time is very encouraging.

"In fact all the Olympic squad look in very good shape considering they are all still in hard work, and won't begin their taper until after this meet."

Duncan overcame a slow start to power away in winning the 400m freestyle in 3m 52.46s, which converts to approximately three seconds outside his qualifying mark for the Olympics.

Kent took more than a second off his own New Zealand short-course record in winning the 400m individual medley in 4m 15.18s.

He went out in 59.23s for the butterfly, went through the backstroke in 2m 04.01s, cleared out in the breaststroke in 3m 16.15s, before coming home in a sub-60s 100m freestyle.

His North Shore clubmate Scott Talbot-Cameron took out the 50m backstroke, while their fellow Olympic Steven Ferguson was top qualifier in the 100m breaststroke.

The closest final was the night's longest, with North Shore's Melissa Ingram out-touching North Harbour's Kate Brookes-Peterson to win the women's 800m freestyle in 8m 53.43s.

- NZPA

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